HOW IT STARTED

Hi! My name is Evgeniya. It sounds like you’ve gained something… maybe you’ve gained weight… or a new friend… Let’s hope it’s all for the best things You’ve GAIN ya? I work in Marketing, I do freelance writing for Rowland Publishing, and I’m an inspired lifestyle blogger. I’m a Leo, early 40s and I’m living my best life…

I moved to the US when I was 19 years old on a student program to work for the summer… only it didn’t turn out as I planned. See, I was making lots of reckless choices when I came here. I lived my whole life with my parents back home, being a good girl, going to school, doing all the teenage stuff without them knowing and when I got to America, I realized I had no one to watch me, so I did a whole lot of everything! Sounds fun, right? Only it wasn’t.

I partied and had all the drinks that were offered and I had the time of my life… later that first year I married a guy who seemed like a sensible choice of a husband (what the hell did I know about that at 19, right?) I had a baby and went to college, but we parted ways 4 years later…

Back to that scary stuff… See, my daughter is becoming an independent adult. I have been pretty much dedicated to being a solo mom, working hard and occasionally doing little things like a trip or something just for me…But now, in my 40s this fear is starting to creep up… Like something ghostly in the corner… it’s been watching me all these years… waiting. It’s peeking at me with these piercing eyes and a smirk on its face. The mid-life crisis.

It happens differently I’ve read for different people, different genders. For me, it’s this feeling of being lost and stepping into something unfamiliar. Pretty much off the cliff… I have been a single working mom all these years and now… who the heck am I? Am I even still a mom? My daughter is now grown and wants nothing to do with me, she would much rather go out with her boyfriend to their friends houses and do bonfires in the woods… I am still single and working… But that can’t be my identity, right?

The fear of not knowing who I am is starting to come out of the dark corner reaching out with its tentacles, wrapping around me like it’s trying to suffocate me…but I moved to a foreign country by myself when I was 19, so if I could do that, I think I can get this fear conquered too.

I have never experienced this before, obviously, so I am reading and doing my research on the identity and “grown moms alone” yeah don’t put that into Google search! In a way, there is a lot of freedom of “You can do whatever you wish with your life now! You don’t have to take care of anyone, get new hobbies, travel…”

My word for this year is WONDER - “a feeling of surprise mingled with admiration, caused by something beautiful, unexpected, unfamiliar, or inexplicable.” according to Google. Wonder in French is MERVEILLE, hence the name of this blog. But, as with any change, it’s frightening. So I made a decision, I feel like it’s a chance for a new beginning and exploration. I am rediscovering who I am and who I could be… So as long as I have a plan, I can get this scary thing off me and start writing a new story for my life, hopefully it’ll be a romantic and adventurous one.